I'll Follow the Sun
by DecemberPaintedWings
Summary: Rose and Damon have a lot on their minds in this last dream they are sharing.  These moments of perfection can't suppress the wrenching heartbreak of goodbye.  *Rated T for strong themes of death and the afterlife* Please enjoy and review! One-Shot


**A/N: Songfic to the Beatles version of the song, "I'll Follow the Sun." It's just a deeper look into Rose and Damon's feelings as she was dying and he tried to give her one last piece of hope in the dream they shared. Please review! **

I'll Follow the Sun

Rose was happy when his quiet shushing and stroking of her hair drifted her off into a dream. Reality was too painful and fragmented for comfort of any sort; she hadn't felt this warmth in _so_ long either. It was the most welcome caress on her face in hundreds of years. She had missed the carefree world of her youth. Rolling hills, green pastures full of wildflowers, docile horses and milk cows. The farm she had grown up on had been the most magical place in the world. To see so much beauty daily was a miracle to her and she had never, in the hundreds of years that she had been a vampire, forgiven Katerina for taking that away from her. Innocent and naïve, she was lacking none of her heart's desires; contentment reigned true in her. Except, there was one thing missing….true love had eluded her as a human. And while she had told Damon expressly that she didn't fall for men who loved other women, she hadn't been able to help herself. Maybe someday he would realize how she had felt and ache for her. Until then Rose would bask in sunshine restored to her in this dream and follow its tracks across the meadow.

_One day you'll look to see I've gone.  
For tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun.  
Some day you'll know I was the one.  
But tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun._

It truly grieves her to know what is coming as they wile away the minutes on the hillside together. Feeling the warm breeze through the autumn-tinged leaves as she stroked the beautiful white horse, she had darted away holding her skirts, running and spinning down the hill with joy in her heart. She knew it wouldn't last, but as her long, brown hair twirled around her like a waterfall she just let the moment be in her soul. The best moments only needed to be in the soul, wordless and flowing. Rose had seen him there, waiting for her, out of place in his leather jacket, black as night on such a bright day but so right even though he should be wrong. He could never be wrong to her though, because he was the other half of her. They shared a darkness but also a bright radiance. Neither had chosen such a heavy existence, but they hadn't abandoned it either, making the best of one horrifying situation after another.

_And now the time has come  
And so my love I must go.  
And though I lose a friend,  
In the end you will know, oooh._

_One day you'll find that I have gone.  
But tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun.  
Yes, tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun._

"This was my favorite place to come as a girl. How did you know?" Rose asked Damon wonderingly as she drew her knees close to her body, trying to stave off a chill running down her spine.

"Word gets around." Damon quipped smiling softly at her, missing the usual snark in his eyes and words. Rose quirked an eyebrow in his direction, smiling back at him just as gently. Always he had an answer for anyone who had a question; but she knew that even he couldn't solve the problem she was facing. It was an eternal problem that could never truly be solved. Being a vampire was just a limited extension of life, not a cure for the eventual death that all living things must face. She knew this better than anyone after seeing everyone else go on before it was her turn.

"You told Elena," he confides with some mischief in his velvety voice. "Are you badgering me?" she answers with laughter coating her words.

Turning her unlined, youthful face up towards the sky, Rose closes her eyes in blissful revelation. "The sun is so warm. I miss this. I miss being human." Turning to look at him, he moves to face her in return. "Humanity's not all it's cracked up to be," he returns with a sardonic frown on his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

She looks away, down at her feet, with longing etched into her eyes. They are haunted with ages gone by of loneliness. "I had friends, I had a family; I mattered." Gazing back upwards, Rose's face changes again into a thoughtful expression. He can almost see her doubt written across it, never imagining her worth to him even after such a short time in his life.

"You still do," Damon answers, quick to reassure her, to reassure them both of her presence and its necessity. He will miss her and this is his own backward way of letting her know.

"No," she answers, sadness flying over her expression, backlit by the sunshine she loves. "But you do," Rose finishes, with that quirk to her eyebrow again as she gazes at him once more. She is letting him know that she has seen his place in the world, and it is an important one still. Intensifying her study of him, she continues pursuing his redemption with what little time she has left on this hill of her youth.

"You've built a life, whether you want to admit it or not. I spent five hundred years just existing." Wistfulness creeps into the lilt of her voice at this admission. She could've done so much more, been someone important for at least one living being, but she spent all her time afraid and paralyzed with it. "You didn't have a choice, you were running from Klaus," he returns, not unkindly looking at her when he says it, trying to convince them both. He barely has the words out before she answers with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, "There is always a choice." He looks like he is dying inside at these words, but then he decides it is time to forget this back-and-forth of theirs. Time is of the essence and it is being wasted in his opinion.

He looks like he is trying not to yell when he says, "You know, you are ruining a perfectly good day with your strange philosophical babbling." Before he has finished this admonishment, Rose is smiling brightly, throwing her arms about his neck and moving in closer, trying to feel connection again. One last moment of being in his arms is all she really wants. It's all he can give to her at this point and he won't begrudge her this one small wish, when she is the reason he has plenty of time for his own wishes.

_And now the time has come  
And so my love I must go.  
And though I lose a friend,  
In the end you will know, oooh._

Holding him until she feels ready to let go, she leans back asking gently, "I'd like to enjoy the fresh air. Will you enjoy it with me?" Damon smiles affectionately at her request and responds, "For a while," pulling Rose gently back into his arms, not wanting to believe that this could ever end. A moment as perfect as this is something he hasn't had in over a century and he doesn't want to let it die. Damon thinks that when it's over his soul might finally be crushed the rest of the way down into the blackness. But there is nothing he can do, so he holds Rose tightly in his arms, encircling her soul, desperately wanting to keep it with him. As her head rests under his chin, he inhales the smell of sun, grass and wild bluebells in her hair. She entwines their hands together and smiles in wonderment and surprise when his grip matches her own.

For a second he is back at home, in his bedroom holding her just like in this perfect dream, gripping a stake in his other hand. Rose's face is chalky, going the grey hue of true death, but she is peaceful. This is assurance but not comforting. Then Damon is back smelling the bluebells and hearing her voice next to him.

"Thank you," she is saying with reverence in her voice. "For what?" Damon answers, fighting the tears that are threatening his composure, as he kisses the top of her head. He will cry when it's over, but until then he has to be strong and stoic for her. Rose's last moments need to be nothing short of perfect; so he holds the tears back, fighting with the fierceness of the whole Confederacy against their assault.

"The pain's gone." Rose says this with a tone of apprehension and a look of a soul that is aching for something. She knows what it is, but she hasn't the heart for it just now. Please God if you're there, just another moment. Why now, when I've found it finally? "I'm glad," Damon replies, those traitorous tears thickening his voice against his will.

It comes to her in that moment, total peace and the question she has never dared to ask but can no longer hold back from spilling over the tip of her tongue. Rose's eyes widen with hope and she twists lightly asking lowly, almost too low for him to hear, "Will I see them again? My family?" His face clears for just an instant. "I think you will see whoever you want to see." With those words he looks centuries older than he even is and younger still at the same time, almost a boy again, dreaming of his mother waiting for him in paradise.

"That would be nice," Rose grins, secretly praying yet another prayer, that maybe something can happen just once the way that it's supposed to; the way she was told it would when she still could believe the promises of fairness and chivalry. Turning abruptly the rest of the way to face him entirely, "Maybe I'll see Trevor too." Rose says this with disbelief coloring her words, for she knows that might be asking just a little too much. She's done a lot of bad things. Maybe she doesn't deserve full wish fulfillment. There is an ache in her heart at this fleeting thought. As soon as it came, the ache is gone and she is ready.

Startled by the readiness she feels for this last adventure she says, "I'm not afraid anymore." It sounds as though even she can't believe it, that fear could fly away this suddenly from a soul tethered by it for so long. Fear had been the chains on her wings. Now it was time to soar, through this nightmare and into the Sun again.

Damon smiles at her encouragingly, even as in another reality he is letting her hand slide from his own, tightening his grasp on the stake that will release her. His lips quiver, hands shaking as he positions the smooth wood against her chest. The point rests against it innocently in contradiction of its purpose. It's time to let go but Damon's heart is screaming in agony, every fiber of his being protesting this injustice. She doesn't deserve this; not his wild-rose, that grew in his heart when he wasn't watching. This is a second death. He thought he knew what it meant to grieve when Katherine "died" but it is already threatening to swallow him whole and Rose isn't even gone yet. He can't do this, he just can't. But he will, if only to end Rose's suffering. Damon will lose to fate once more for the sake of someone else's relief.

Rose is pulling him back to her intricate face, jumping up from the ground with that smile still in place. Only this time it seems deeper, as if she can read the universe and is barely breathing with the weight of it. Determination clouds her presence. Nothing will stop her from doing this and in that fragment of time he resigns himself wearily.

Illuminated, shining like a day-star she says with that mischief returned to her voice, "I'll race you to the trees." Damon does the only thing he can and replies with cockiness, "You know you'll lose." Rose shakes her head with a smirk spreading across her face. "I'm older and faster." She grins down at him even wider. His eyes go stark with challenge, widening in disbelief and humor. "Oh, you think?"

Damon pushes off the ground and moves in her direction. Rose backs away laughing with the giddiness of it all. He drinks in the sound; it is a symphony to his bleeding ears. "Well I'm controlling this dream, maybe I'll cheat." He teases her with his hands gesturing defiantly. Rose presses back the laughter from spilling out unbidden once more and her lips part excitedly, "On the count of three." With this final challenge, he raises the stake into the air away from her ghastly form. Her eyes glance down the hill in anticipation.

A final run, leaping into a new beginning and it thrills her to her fingertips to think of it. "One," she counts lightly. He raises her death higher into the air. "Two," Rose counts out, her face glowing so much Damon can't look away thought he wants to with everything he is.

Before she can count off the 'three' he rams it into her cold heart. Tears are streaking down his face now, even though he tried to wait until it was over. Rose's face frowns as it moves for the last time, drying up into the nothingness she has become, with the aid of his hands. Damon leans into her, tucking her head under his chin one last time. All he can sense now is ash, and the stench of death scenting her hair. The bluebells were gone and would never return no matter how much he wanted them back. As he places her gently into the trunk of his car, Damon shatters with finality and a gracefulness that makes him know it won't ever be the same. He'll always be missing the piece that completes him; the wild-rose that has been sheared from his soul.

Rose is floating through a sea of stars across the universe. Everything that troubled her is gone; all the fear has vanished as if it never existed. Almost in the blink of an eye, she is in that meadow again. Only now there are more people sitting in the sun with her. Mother, Father, her sisters (Amarantha and Linnea) and off to the side was a figure that was still blurry with distance. As she drew closer, Rose let out a cry of pure delight. Standing there, looking handsome and whole was Trevor. It was as Damon had said. Everyone she wanted to see was waiting. Except for Damon, but he would come one day. All she had to do was patiently wait for the day when he would follow the sun into her outstretched arms. Then sorrow would truly be removed from every corner of her heart. Until then Rose would hope for his happiness without her, anticipating that distant place in the future. Wishes were sliding and living things; they willed their own existence and fulfilled themselves when ready. Rose threw a wish up into the sun and began her vigil.

_One day you'll find that I have gone.  
But tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun._


End file.
